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 AL
SIEBERT, author of The Survivor Personality, has spent the last
40 years studying survivors of all kinds — concentration
camp survivors, people lost at sea, castaways, prisoners of war,
etc. Siebert writes, “They go from being emotionally upset
to coping to thriving to serendipity with amazing speed.”
How do they do it? One of the most important
things they do is use slotras.
Siebert has collected lots of questionaires by survivors, and
he says when a survivor hits a setback, “they frequently
repeat sayings to themselves,” like these:
When the going gets tough, the tough get
going.
When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.
And survivors ply themselves with good-quality
questions. It works for survivors just as it works for anyone
else in any other difficult situation. A life-or-death situation
only intensifies the outcome: Those who lived to tell the tale
did something successful with their minds. They ask questions
like these:
Why is it good this happened?
Is there an opportunity here that did
not exist before?
What could I do to turn this around
and have it turn out well for all of us?
These are great questions. Think about
the difference between occupying your mind with the questions
above, as opposed to questions that don’t work but come
naturally. For example, "Why me?" or "What have
I done to deserve this?" Learn more about asking good questions.
THOUGHT PRACTICE
The survivors say those things or ask those
questions often. Without realizing what they're doing, they are
practicing those thoughts, making them familiar and comfortable
and come easily to mind. Then when they're in a difficult survival
situation, those well-practiced thoughts serve them well.
You can use the same principle. Say things
to yourself that make you feel motivated. Say things to yourself
that make you feel strong and determined. Literally make a list
of statements. Specifically, think of the most common situations
where you don’t feel motivated, and try to come up with
statements you could say to yourself in those situations that
would make you feel motivated or strong or relaxed or whatever
you want to feel. Or think of what you could say to yourself
that would make you more effective. Just sit down and do the
work of thinking up ideas. Write them all down.
Once you have this list, go through and
start taking away the weakest ones. And tweak others so they
are more motivating. Keep them mostly single sentences, sometimes
phrases, and sometimes two sentences.
Go through the list again until you can
trim it down to the most strength-giving slotras. Now type them
up and print them. Fold the paper up and carry it in your pocket.
Pull it out five times a day, and read each sentence several
times with feeling. Sometimes pull it out in those situations
where you need motivation, or right before you’re going
to need it, and read each sentence with feeling and see which
ones work the best. Keep tweaking the wording and eliminating
the weaker ones until you have one or two slotras that give you
the best results. Write those two on a card and carry that card
everywhere you go.
Every day, five times a day, pull it out
and say those slotras to yourself several times each. This is
thought practice.
The more you repeat the slotra, the more
ingrained it becomes. If you do it twice a day, it may take months
before the slotra becomes ingrained and comes to mind easily.
If you do it fifty times a day, it will happen even faster.
The things you think are as much a habit
as tying your shoes. You do it a certain way, and it comes automatically.
But the ways you think naturally or automatically may not be
the most motivating, so here you will practice new ways to think,
and you will literally and directly practice the new thoughts,
making those thoughts come automatically.
You say those statements over and over
to yourself with feeling, not trying to influence your subconscious
mind, and not in order to mystically influence the vibrations
of the universe, but in order to form new habits of thought —
habits that will make you feel more motivated.
Right after my first book was published,
I was going around visiting bookstores, asking them to stock
my book on their shelves, and then coming back later to see how
things were going, and I was soon discouraged. I thought the
book business was going to be pretty easy and the hard part was
writing and publishing the book. I thought people would pick
up my book and just go crazy tell all their friends and my book
would have a hard time staying on the shelves because it would
be snatched up as soon as it was put out, and I’d be on
easy street.But I was starting to realize, “I’m going
to have to work at it. I’m going to have to do things to
get people into the store looking for my book.” I was feeling
kind of disheartened by this realization but then I used one
of my slotras: “The world needs better attitudes!”
That slotra bucked me up. It renewed my
fighting spirit. It kept me working toward my goal and dissolved
my discouragement. It happened to be a phrase that motivated
me and made me feel determined.
What thoughts put the fight in you?
What thoughts make you want to try? What thoughts fire
you up? Make a list, eliminate all but the most effective,
and keep editing them until they are powerful thoughts that really
get to you, and then practice them.
Read next: Different
Kinds of Motivation
This article is part of a series on Slotralogy.
Read the first section here: Slotralogy
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